Pope Francis has said that speaking to the members of the congregation should be limited to eight minutes because ‘attention is lost’
The Pontiff therefore, directed that priests should keep their homilies short and speak for a maximum of eight minutes to prevent members of the congregation from nodding off.
The homily, or message delivered during a church service, “must be short: an image, a thought, a feeling”, the pope said during his weekly audience on Wednesday.
It should not last longer than eight minutes “because after that time attention is lost and people fall asleep, and they are right,” said the 87-year-old pontiff.
“Priests sometimes talk a lot and you don’t understand what they are talking about.”
A homily in a Roman Catholic service usually follows a reading from the Bible and is used to reinforce the teaching.
Francis has spoken in the past of the need for priests not to ramble on during sermons but his own use of language is now under scrutiny.
